For more than 25 years IRIS production group, a corporate events and communication specialist, has developed extensive knowledge in order to best meet its clients’ needs – tips, video services, coaching participants, etc. The agency is particularly committed to offering innovative tools such as the Evenium ConnexMe app. Vincent Hellet, the group’s Executive President, shares his experience with you.
Events evolve and have true meaning.
I created IRIS production nearly 30 years ago. I am the group’s Chairman and I take care of the advice giving, speech writing and participant coaching aspect of the business, among other things. Our clients come from many different sectors – mass retail, aeronautics, etc. – even though we do have high expertise in the pharmaceutical field. At the beginning of my career, events had to be lavish in order to show off the good health of a company. Now, events are more about conveying values, as the organizers wish to create a bond between participants.
Consistency throughout: promote the core message of the event.
At IRIS production, our true desire is to give meaning and depth to the corporate event content. Our clients don’t come to see us because they want a great big technically impressive show, but because they seek advice in our knowledge regarding event optimization so that their messages can be more impactful.
Offer the best in new technologies to highlight the core message.
One of our strongest added values is starting off with a pretty neutral client briefing, and being able to write interventions and organize seminars. 80% of the time, we take part in writing the plenary session.
We also offer corporate communication tools to support our client’s core messages. To this end, we provide an important technology watch. We stay informed of the sector’s newest developments and test them before offering them to our clients. We don’t try and integrate new solutions into corporate events at any price, rather we think of how best to serve the content of the message. If the content can be enhanced thanks to a new tool, we will then recommend it to our clients, and will manage its implementation and optimize its usage.
ConnexMe: an efficient tool to make messages have more impact.
It was during a technology watch that we discovered the interaction and networking app Evenium ConnexMe. We also tested apps from other vendors but ConnexMe really made all the difference thanks to its adaptability and the broad range of its features. The app is a true “Swiss army knife”, in that there are many possibilities to use it when you master the tool!
Upon presenting ConnexMe to a client, we don’t just demonstrate the product, instead we show how the app can serve the key corporate messages and optimize their transmission.
I recall one of our clients, who was organizing a seminar to really cement his employees into the firm’s future. All participants were equipped with digital tools, as management wanted to push them towards digitalization despite some internal reticence. In the event’s specifications, our client made it clear that he wished to create a network and a community, and push the notion of digitalization at the same time. We offered him a fully digitalized event: paperless seminar (invitations were only sent out electronically, agenda offered via app only, etc.). ConnexMe perfectly adapts to this type of event, where the aim is to project employees into the future and create bonds between them.
ConnexMe is a tool that enables full digitalization and the building of a community network.
The ConnexMe app is a tool that is both serious and fun. It’s very useful to create bonds between participants in an enjoyable, fun way. For example, for one of our clients, we used ConnexMe to create a « Tic Tac » game, with the purpose of helping company employees to meet each other. The concept was simple: prior to the event we created pairs, and we then asked that each participant find their other « half ». To do so, each guest had three personal hints given by this other person, from the time of enrollment to the event (ex : I’m a fast runner, I always have a tan etc.).
Last April, we used ConnexMe at a seminar that we were organizing. At the end of the seminar, the company’s CEO told participants that ConnexMe was going to remain available even after the event concluded. She encouraged guests to continue to connect to it, to keep up the bonds created between them during the event. For this, she suggested that they use ConnexMe to share personal tips of theirs with other colleagues. We notice that this really works well. One employee used it to ask who was going to attend a conference abroad that he was also attending. Colleagues answered him, and they all worked things out to make the trip together. This example perfectly illustrates how ConnexMe allows the building of a social network from the event, and beyond, within the company.
An efficient tool to liven things up and inform.
We can benefit from the ConnexMe app at an event by sending push notifications to share practical information with guests, like for example when a workshop is about to start again. We try to keep these messages as much fun as possible, so that our clients welcome them. For example, we organized a seminar at Disneyland for one of our clients, and we used Disney characters to convey messages to the guests. Sleeping Beauty wished the guests good night and reminded them of the next day’s first meeting. In brief, serious information is transmitted to the guests via the ConnexMe notifications, but in a way that matches the seminar’s general tone.
Have the guests participate: an efficient way to engage them.
We also often offer participants to share their comments via the app. The goal can vary greatly depending on the event.
Sometimes, we wish to promote team spirit and the comments are a playful way of participating. To encourage them in this vein, we ask upper management to begin a discussion in the app in an informal manner. For other events, we invite guests to post comments to further a debate on certain topics that are very serious, sometimes even controversial. For this, we ask them to post constructive criticism on what has just been said.
Team up with your guests to create the event’s final word together.
When we want to finish a seminar, the conclusion is always complicated. Most of the time, the key messages are summed up — it’s often heavy and repetitive. With ConnexMe, the final remarks can be livened up, we can show all the event’s exchanges, and even ask attendees to compose the final words together. It’s easy, we just ask them a question such as “In one word, how do you see the company in 5 years’ time?” and we display the results onscreen in the form of a word cloud. We are in the interactive, showing guests that we are writing the story together, and that gives the messages much more impact!
